China says it may have detected signals from alien civilization

Reports that China's 'Sky Eye' telescope may have detected signals from alien life were published and then promptly removed from the state-run outlet Science and Technology Daily.

China’s science ministry says they’ve picked up signals on one of their telescopes that could be signs of an alien civilization.

The scientists at Beijing Normal University say that the signals were identified earlier this year on the country’s giant “Sky Eye” telescope, and have called the signals “suspicious.”

On Tuesday, the Chinese state media outlet Science and Technology Daily reported that researchers were looking into a number of “possible technological traces” from intelligent civilizations elsewhere in the cosmos, reported Newsweek.

Zhang Tonjie, chief scientist of an extraterrestrial civilization search team co-founded by Beijing Normal University, the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of California, Berkeley, said the narrow-band electromagnetic signals differ from previously captured signals.

The suspicious signals, however, could be the result of radio interference. Zhang said that further investigation is required.

Mysteriously, the report was removed from the state-backed website with no explanation why. However, the news has been picked up by several media outlets, including state-run Chinese news sites, reported Bloomberg.

The Sky Eye telescope’s official name is Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) and it is the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world, with a diameter of 500 metres (equivalent to 30 football fields, as the telescope’s website states.)

One of its listed scientific goals is to search for extraterrestrial life.